I was still in the office.
One afternoon, a friend messaged me asking if I wanted to buy a sailboat together. It wasn’t a serious, well-thought-out proposal. More an idea thrown into the air. He backed out not long after.
But the message stayed with me.
It felt less like a boat idea and more like a door opening. An alternative to the routine I was sitting in. A reminder that life didn’t have to look the way it currently did.
I didn’t buy a boat. Instead, I started looking online and found something else. A sailboat crossing the Atlantic that was looking for crew.
It wasn’t something I had been planning. It wasn’t a childhood dream. It just felt like an opportunity to step out of the routine I had drifted into.
So I signed up.
Before leaving, the idea felt big. Crossing an ocean carries weight as a concept. Distance. Isolation. Commitment.
Once we left land behind, it became surprisingly simple. There was time. A lot of it. Time to think. Time to observe. Time without the usual noise of daily life.
I thought about work. About direction. About the feeling of being on autopilot. I realized how easily a life can take shape without you actively choosing it.
On board, I met people from completely different backgrounds. Different ages. Different careers. Some had stable professions and sailed in their spare time. Others had stepped away from conventional paths entirely. Some were building businesses remotely. Some were drifting between projects.
No one seemed to follow the same blueprint.
Being around that made something click for me. It doesn’t really matter what you do. In the sense that there isn’t one correct version of adulthood. There are many ways to structure a life. Many rhythms that work.
The crossing didn’t give me a master plan. But it gave me confidence.
Confidence that I could enter something unfamiliar and handle it. Confidence that the world is bigger than the narrow path I had been walking.
It also gave me something quieter, a bit more peace with uncertainty. I didn’t suddenly know what I wanted long-term. But I was less afraid of not knowing.
I’ve written more detailed notes about the onboard routine, preparation, and what surprised me during the crossing in the book I’m currently working on.
→ More ocean crossing notes in the book → (link later)
I’m also putting together a practical ocean crossing guide and a separate seasickness guide.
- Ocean Crossing Guide →
- Seasickness Guide →
After the crossing, I kept moving. The next stretch of travel took me to Central America.
